And not only he knew them, but all the other men the customers and the loungers, the white and the black that would be sitting and squatting about the store's gallery to watch her pass, not quite defiant and not quite cringing and not quite flaunting the ribbons and the beads, but almost; not quite any of them but a little of all: bold, sullen, and fearful. But Father said how Wash's heart was probably still quiet even after he saw the dress and spoke about it, probably only a little grave now and watching her secret defiant frightened face while she told him (before he had asked, maybe too insistent, too quick to volunteer it) that Miss Judith had given it to her, helped her to make it: and Father said maybe he realized all of a sudden and without warning that when he passed the men on the gallery they would look after him too and that they already knew that which he had just thought they were probably thinking. But Father said his heart was still quiet, even now, and that he answered, if he answered at all, stopped the protestations and disclaimers at all: "Sho, now.
Ef Kernel and Miss Judith wanted to give hit to you, I hope you minded to thank them." — Not alarmed, Father said: just thoughtful, just grave; and Father said how that afternoon Grandfather rode out to see Sutpen about something and there was nobody in the front of the store and he was about to go out and go up to the house when he heard the voices from the back and he walked on toward them and so he overheard them before he could begin to not listen and before he could make them hear him calling Sutpen's name. Grandfather couldn't see them yet, he hadn't even got to where they could hear him yet, but he said he knew exactly how they would be: Sutpen having already told Wash to get the jug out and then Wash spoke and Sutpen beginning to turn, realizing that Wash wasn't getting the jug before he comprehended the import of what Wash was saying, then comprehending that and still half turned and then all of a sudden kind of reared back and flinging his head up, looking at Wash and Wash standing there, not cringing either, in that attitude dogged and quiet and not cringing, and Sutpen said, "What about the dress?" and Grandfather said it was Sutpen's voice that was short and sharp: not Wash's; that Wash's voice was just flat and quiet, not abject: just patient and slow: "I have knowed you for going on twenty years now. I aint never denied yit to do what you told me to do. And I'm a man past sixty. And she aint nothing but a fifteen-year-old gal." and Sutpen said, "Meaning that I'd harm the girl? I, a man as old as you are?" and Wash: "If you was arra other man, I'd say you was as old as me. And old or no old, I wouldn't let her keep that dress nor nothing else that come from your hand. But you are different." and Sutpen: "How different?" and Grandfather said how Wash did not answer and that he called again now and neither of them heard him; and then Sutpen said: "So that's why you are afraid of me?" and Wash said, "I aint afraid. Because you are brave. It aint that you were a brave man at one second or minute or hour of your life and got a paper to show hit from General Lee. But you are brave, the same as you are alive and breathing. That's where it's different. Hit don't need no ticket from nobody to tell me that. And I know that whatever your hands tech, whether hit's a regiment of men or a ignorant gal or just a hound dog, that you will make hit right." Then Grandfather heard Sutpen move, sudden and sharp, and Grandfather said he reckoned, thought just about what he imagined Wash was thinking. But all Sutpen said was, "Get the jug." — "Sho, Kernel," Wash said.
